Contenders to Lead Senate Are Opposite in Style

WASHINGTON — Sen. Bob Dole’s effort to energize his presidential race against a younger, more dynamic opponent has set the stage for an equally fierce generational contest, this one for the top Senate leadership post that Dole is leaving behind.

The two candidates for the position of majority leader are Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi, Dole’s second-in-command and spokesman for a new generation of aggressive Senate conservatives, and fellow Mississippian Thad Cochran, who represents old-school Republicans more willing--like Dole--to compromise with Democrats to get things done.

The outcome will not be certain until GOP senators elect the new majority leader sometime next month. But if the tea-leaf readers are right and Lott wins the post, it will signify a dramatic changing of the guard within the ranks of Senate Republicans.

Lott, who worked closely with Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) when the two Southerners served in the House together, is described by one senior Senate aide as “Newt Gingrich with table manners.”

Gingrich, in fact, stressed their close ties at a news conference after Dole’s resignation announcement Wednesday. “Trent Lott was my mentor at one time,” he said.

Some Capitol Hill veterans already are worrying aloud about the potential impact of Dole’s departure and Lott’s probable ascension on the tradition of decorum and bipartisanship that has tended to distinguish the Senate from the House.

“The trend of partisanship that began several years ago will continue,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). “Bob Dole always tried to get a bipartisan agreement first and then a partisan one. I don’t think that will be the custom of his replacement.”

Rep. Nancy L. Johnson (R-Conn.), a seventh-term House moderate, said she is concerned that Dole’s departure means the Senate will not exert the same moderating influence on the House that it has over the last year and a half.

“The Congress as a whole will lose some of the moderating impact of Dole’s leadership. Dole has a very healthy, balanced national view, and that takes years to cultivate,” Johnson said. “Dole was a very, very formidable ally and was well respected by members of the Republican Party across the board because he listened, understood and knew where the right balance was.”

While some Republicans are bracing themselves for what they fear will be an onslaught of brash new GOP “Young Turks,” some conservative analysts have gushed at the prospect.

“Lott would be more active, more aggressive” than Dole, said Frank Luntz, a GOP pollster and political consultant close to Gingrich. “It’s generational change. It’s fresh blood and a renewed sense of vigor.”

Bruce Bartlett, senior analyst for the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis, added: “Lott is much more aggressive and much more conservative--in a ‘90s sense. More a Gingrich type.”

Democrats, who have been enjoying something of a political revival in recent months following their initial disarray after the new Republican majority was elected in 1994, are concerned that they might lose their edge if Lott takes over.

“People are a little worried that the Republicans are going to get their act together,” said a senior Democratic Senate aide. “Let’s assume Lott becomes leader. He’s just Newt Gingrich with table manners. Dole was acting like he was a true believer. Now the true believers are in charge.”

Lott, a 54-year-old, second-term senator, rapidly ascended to the post of majority whip, the second spot in the Senate leadership lineup, with a narrow victory last year over Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.). His victory was attributable in part to a boost from Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), Dole’s longtime rival from the right.

Most of Lott’s training came in the House, where he served from 1973 until 1988 and developed a close kinship with Gingrich and other more doctrinaire Republicans.

Dole’s relationship with Gingrich was colored by underlying tensions and philosophical differences, and the two have had to work hard to present a unified GOP front. But if Lott wins the majority leader’s job, he and Gingrich are expected to work together easily.

“With Lott and Gingrich, there’s going to be very little to work out,” said David Mason, an analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “There’s going to be a deep level of trust.”

At the same time, it would be a mistake to assume that Lott will take a junior position compared with Gingrich, Mason said. “Lott is going to be a powerful, capable leader,” he said. “Gingrich’s singular image is going to be diminished.”

Cochran, 58, by contrast, has been in the Senate a decade longer than Lott, and his style reflects the years he spent in the minority. He is close to Dole and, like the outgoing majority leader, seems generally more willing to cooperate with legislators on both sides of the aisle. Cochran is a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, a panel known as a bastion of bipartisanship and pragmatism.

Yet all signs indicate that Cochran’s bid for the leadership is likely to be no more than a last grasp at power by a generation of pragmatic Republicans that is clearly waning in influence.

Barring an unforeseen turn of events, Lott is clearly the man to beat. The day after Dole stunned the Capitol by announcing his resignation, Lott was walking around wearing a smile and carrying a Senate roster in his pocket. While he would not say definitively if he has the 27 votes he needs to win the top job, he acknowledged: “I feel good about it.”

Privately, he has told colleagues that he has “close to 40” votes and wouldn’t be surprised to see Cochran drop out of the race.

As part of his campaign for majority leader, Lott has been attempting to deflate concerns about his reputation as a staunch conservative likely to mimic Gingrich.

“We are very close friends, and we are very close philosophically. I wouldn’t presume to try to deny that,” Lott said. “But I’m not in any way tethered to him.”

He stressed that his voting record is no more conservative than Dole’s.

But Senate insiders agree that Lott’s style is more purist and confrontational than Dole’s. For instance, when the balanced-budget amendment was defeated last year by one vote, Lott went public with his outrage at Sen. Mark O. Hatfield (R-Ore.), the only Republican who voted against it. Hatfield’s vote showed “an awful lot of arrogance,” Lott said in a televised interview.

Another clear difference between Dole and Lott is reflected in their staffs.

Dole’s chief of staff, Sheila Burke, has exerted great influence over the shape of major legislative packages like welfare reform, as well as over the Senate schedule. Hers has generally been a moderating influence.

The man likely to take Burke’s place, Lott chief of staff David Hoppe, is much more conservative, according to Senate watchers. Most of Dole’s Senate staff of 43 is likely to leave with him.

“We all know about Sheila Burke and the enormous impact she had on the whole Senate, not just on Dole,” said Bartlett. “All those people are going to be gone and replaced by the new people. That alone is going to make a substantial difference.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Top Contenders

The front-runners to replace Bob Dole as Senate majority leader:

TRENT LOTT

* Age: 54

Education: Bachelor’s degree from the University of Mississippi, 1963; law degree from there in 1967.

* Political experience: Elected to the House in 1972 and served until 1988. Elected to the Senate in 1988, reelected in 1994. Elected Senate majority whip over Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) in 1994.

* Family: Married, two children.

****

THAD COCHRAN

* Age: 58

* Education: Bachelor’s degree from the University of Mississippi, 1959; law degree from there in 1965.

* Political experience: Served in the House from 1973 until 1978, when he won election to the Senate to replace the late James O. Eastland. Won reelection to the Senate in 1984 and 1990.

* Family: Married, two children.